


I Was Here

by DontTouchTheSun



Series: i was here, i lived, i loved [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Gen, character death in 1st chapter but doesnt stick, does it count as amnesia if her memories were deleted, second chapter is about rebuilt penny, you ever get sad bc penny died
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-11-13 03:42:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontTouchTheSun/pseuds/DontTouchTheSun
Summary: A story of Penny's short life and her eventual rebirth.





	1. i lived

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for any tense shift, I tried to write this in present tense and found myself occasionally going back to past tense.
> 
> Title is from "I was here" by Beyonce.
> 
> Constructive critiques are welcome.

ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE. 

She doesn’t wake up immediately, instead each system flashing into awareness one by one. She can feel an arm, then a leg, and soon there are flashing words behind closed eyelids that quickly fall away as she opens her eyes for the first time.

There’s a man leaning over her, face frozen before he’s smiling, brightly, eyes lighting up. There’s another man to the side, face stern as he looks at her but there’s something in his eyes that she thinks is almost an echo of the same happiness in the first man’s eyes.

They tell her later their names. The first man is Dr. Polendina, her father. The second General Ironwood. They built her. The first synthetic being capable of generating an aura.

They tell her that her name is Penny and one day she will save the world.

\--  


The first few weeks of her life are spent being taught. There’s knowledge that’s been downloaded into her brain, programmed into her. She knows what an aura is, she knows the different kingdoms and their headmasters, she knows fighting techniques. There is still a lot to learn.

Her father talks to her about people. About the Huntsmen and Huntresses who protect them from Grimm and how she’s one of them, even if she’s not human and not enrolling at an academy. He talks about the kingdoms and how when she’s more prepared he’ll take her to all the sights. He tells her about the faunus and the discrimination they face, making sure she knows that they’re equal even if others don’t see it.

Winter Schnee is assigned to teach her fighting skills. She knows the moves, but her body is awkward and has never fought before. It takes her a few tries to learn how to move her body and swords in such a way that she isn’t immediately thrown back, but once she does Miss. Schnee tells her that she progresses faster than any Huntress she knows. 

Ironwood doesn’t involve himself much with her, merely explaining the reasons why she was built. He tells her that later he will explain more about the war they are facing, of who their enemies are, but that right now she’s not ready.

The soldiers are the closest thing she gets to teachers on being human, but it’s through watching them that she learns anything. There’s no one to directly teach her how to mold her expressions into ones that look natural or inflect her voice, even though Ironwood has told her she must learn to blend in among humans. Perhaps they all think she’ll learn through exposure.

\---

“I wish to go to the Vytal Festival.”

This simple statement leads to a long lecture from her father on how she’s not ready to be out among people, let alone participating in a tournament that will be broadcast to all the kingdoms. Penny doesn’t understand. They want her to learn how to fight, the Vytal Festival would allow her to practice against other Huntsmen and she’s already seen that Pyrrha Nikos will likely be participating. Who better to train against than Miss Nikos? They want her to learn to blend in among humans, wouldn’t she do better at this if she could actually interact with more people than her father, Ironwood, Miss Schnee, and the soldiers whose faces are always covered in masks?

In the end, General Ironwood agrees with her. He says yes and her father defleats and she feels an aching in her chest.

“I will be careful, Papa,” she promises, smiling brightly if not awkwardly at him because she’s still working on facial expressions. He gives her a small smile in return, pulling her close into a hug.  


\---  


Vale is large, larger than she ever expected. She’s seen the kingdom of Atlas only through windows, kept nearly always within the confines of their military base and forbidden from leaving. This is her first time outside, without soldiers watching her every move (if only because she escaped them), and it feels like her system stutters while trying to process the overload of information.

When someone crashes into her and three other girls appear, all Penny can feel is excitement. She’s never talked to people outside the military before!

When one of the girls calls her friend, Penny can barely hope that she means it. And when the girl - Ruby - affirms that they’re friends, Penny throws her arms up in pure glee. She’s never had a friend before, unless one counts the soldiers or Winter and they’re ordered to spend time with her.

Penny isn’t stupid, she can tell that the other three girls think her strange and weird and want to move away but it’s okay. She knows she doesn’t fit in among humans, that she’s yet to blend in the way Ironwood wants her to, so she’s not hurt by what others think and even if she were it wouldn’t matter because now she has a friend.  


\---  


She is lectured later, by Ironwood and her father. What were you thinking? You drew attention to yourself, you pulled down a plane. You could have been injured. They could have found out what you are.

The amount of soldiers ordered to guard her increases, Ironwood telling her she’s not allowed to interact with Team RWBY again - or really anyone before the festival and tournament. Penny thinks this is what sadness feels like.

It takes a lot of effort to avoid Team RWBY. Everytime she sees Ruby she wants to yell and run over to her, but every time she remembers Ironwood’s orders and bows her head and slips back to the Atlas soldiers. Ironwood knows better than her. She shouldn’t interact with them. She doesn’t fit in and they’ll find out and she’s afraid of how they’ll react when they do.

Would they be scared of her? Would they tell her they would never be friends with a robot? Would they say she isn’t real?

\---  


Afterward, Penny looks back and feels elated that she told Ruby. She feels like she’s walking on air. At the moment, she’d only felt terror and anxiety and a worry that she would lose her only real friend but Ruby was her friend and didn’t care that Penny was synthetic.

Penny’s fairly certain that Ironwood and the soldiers know who she was with. Ruby’s semblance isn’t very inconspicuous. The soldiers give her a lecture about not running away that’s really more them pleading at her because she disappears whenever she can. Ironwood gives her a lecture that’s more a rant, about how people saw her stop that car and she can’t be doing these things out in public. No one can know she’s a robot.

She’s lucky that Ironwood doesn’t ask if anyone does know. He’d ask, she’d lie, she’d hiccup, and then Ironwood would be really, really angry.

Penny doesn’t know when she started keeping secrets from Ironwood or when she started disobeying him. In the past she’d escaped the soldiers because she hadn’t known she was meant to stay with them. Now she did it on purpose. Now she consorted with people Ironwood didn’t want her around. Now she’d broken the major rule Ironwood had given her - “don’t let anyone find out you are a synthetic being” - and she didn’t feel bad about it.

She trusts Ironwood. She trusts that he is right about this war and the military and a lot of things. But he doesn't understand her or understand that she wants freedom.

\---  


Each match of the festival is exhilarating, even when it’s not Penny’s match. Ciel has a never ending list of information about the candidates which Penny appreciates and listens to with rapt attention even as her eyes dart all across the stadium field. She pays special attention to Team RWBY and Team JNPR. Ciel agrees with her that they’ll be some of the teams making it to the later rounds.

Penny wonders if she’ll fight Ruby at some point during this festival. She wonders even more if she’ll get to fight Pyrrha Nikos. She needs to prove herself her at this tournament, both to better her own skills for the day when she has to save the world and to show Ironwood that she can. Her plan will fail if she can’t convince him that she’ll be fine in Beacon.

\---  


“Salutations, Pyrrha Nikos! It’s an honor to finally meet you.”

If she weren’t about to enter a battle, Penny would be jumping up and down on her feet. This will be such an exciting battle. Penny knew Pyrrha was one of the best huntresses in the academies, who better to test herself against and learn from than her?

“This is going to be so much fun!”

She smiles brightly, missing how out of it Pyrrha looks. She misses how something is wrong, mind focusing only on how to beat Pyrrha and prove herself to Ironwood and finally, finally put her plan to action so she could stay at Beacon.

\---  


Penny can’t feel pain. She gets signals when damaged, words flashing in front of her eyes about where the damage is and how bad it is, but she can’t feel pain. She thinks that’s a good thing, even if being a robot means these few seconds feel like years.

Pyrrha’s semblance freezes her in place, error messages flashing - SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM REBOOT IN PROCESS. - but by the time her systems are working again, by the time she can move, the swords have wrapped around her. More error messages.

The strings slice through her metal casing, tearing her apart.

She’s terrified in a way she never has been before.

SYSTEM DAMAGED.  
SYSTEM DAMAGED.  
SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.

Her body falls apart, landing in pieces on the stadium floor. There’s a moment where she’s aware even as her body lies broken, where she stares up at the stadium and wishes she could cry because she’s scared and father and Ruby will be so sad and she was supposed to save the world one day.

She was supposed to save the world.

SYSTEM SHUTDOWN


	2. the hearts i have touched will be the proof that i leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny is remade. She is not the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not expecting to write a second chapter but then I started thinking about the theory that Penny could be remade but not remember Ruby and I just had to write about that. Penny isn't IC here because she's been rebuilt and programmed differently but there are still aspects of the original Penny, as you'll see.
> 
> As always, constructive criticism and comments are appreciated!

**ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE.**

She stares up at the ceiling, blinking slowly as a man comes into her vision. He looks at her and she thinks his smile looks strained and his eyes are watery but his voice is strong when he speaks to her. She is Penny. She is a synthetic being. She will save the world one day. He is her creator. His voice stumbles a bit on that word, as if not sure it’s correct or if he should be saying it to her and she briefly wonders why before her thoughts are distracted by another man entering the room.

He looks tired, exhausted, even as steely eyes meet hers. He introduces himself as General Ironwood. There’s something about the way he stands, the way he speaks, that makes her think there is something more he wants to say besides information on her training and their mission but he doesn’t.

The entire time she listens, she sits quietly. Something feels wrong, some feeling deep inside her. She doesn’t know how she can recognize emotions, place that her creator looks sad and General Ironwood looks weary, when she feels entirely numb. She doesn’t tell them this. Something inside her is whispering to keep it secret.

\---

It is not just her creator and Ironwood who act oddly around her. Some soldiers do, steps faltering when they see her. Ms. Schnee looks pained whenever Penny talks to her, though the expression never lasts long before Ms. Schnee wipes the emotions away. That same deep urge that told her not to tell her creator about her confusion tells her to investigate, to push, to find the answers because she’s curious and she wants to know.

She does find out, eventually. She types her name into a search engine and so many news articles pop up. She doesn’t want to know the secrets they’d been keeping anymore.

She had died. She had been remade. She is Penny Polendina but she is not the same Penny Polendina. She can’t remember anything from before, but she thinks there are still remnants of her somewhere deep inside. She thinks that exuberance and curiosity and happiness is still there, hidden behind walls of code.

She thinks that she was remade without the same emotions. She thinks she was remade because her creator felt guilty. She thinks she was remade because General Ironwood has a war to end and she is powerful.

\---

They call themselves Team RWBY. They had been mentioned in the same articles that mentioned her death. Ruby Rose had taken one look at her, her entire face lighting up, and launched herself at Penny. Penny doesn’t know what to do. She assumes that she had known Ruby before, but she doesn’t remember any of it and her emotions still feel muted in a way that is unnatural. When Ruby releases her, she gives the other girl what she hopes is a sad yet comforting look and tries to gently explain that she isn’t the same Penny, not really.

She thinks she may still have the same soul, but whatever Ironwood and her creator did makes her feel like an entirely different person. She doesn’t mention these specifics to Ruby, only that she has no memories before she was remade.

Her chest aches in a way it never has before when Ruby’s face falls, and Penny notices the way the others who had came with Ruby look sad, disappointed, eyes downcast or looking at Penny and Ruby. She wishes she could have lied and acted like she was the same, but she is rather certain this is why her emotions had been muted, her memories not restored. They - Ironwood, Atlas - didn’t want her to be the same. The old Penny had failed, their second attempt had to be different. 

She still feels guilty to have destroyed Ruby’s hopes.

\---

They talk later. Penny apologizes for not being the same. Sitting on a balcony, alone now, with just Ruby who still looks at her with a pinched expression and sorrowful eyes, Penny tries to explain better. Sometimes she feels like she nearly is the old Penny, but they had remade her differently and she’s not sure if anyone can rewrite her code to make her the same person.

She doesn’t know why Ruby’s face falls even more when she mentions rewriting her code. She asks. Ruby tells her that before she had wanted to be a real girl, she had rarely talked about being synthetic, she had hidden it from all but Ruby, and never with ease. Penny wonders why she wasn’t remade with the same wish to be real before she realizes there would be no point. Everyone knows she’s a robot now, there would be no need to blend in like before.

There’s a feeling in her chest that isn’t the same ache as earlier. It feels hot and barely constrained, the barely present embers of anger. She wonders if she was ever angry before.

\---

There is a battle. There is destruction. Penny had trained for this, but in the moment she finds that her focus isn’t on defeating their enemies and protecting Atlas but on protecting Ruby. She leaps in front of Ruby, protecting the other girl. Protecting her _friend_. It feels natural and right and she can practically feel her code beginning to break, to give way. She hopes it does.

\---

Ruby asks her to come with them. They are trying to save the world and Penny doesn’t have to stay here in Atlas, she can join them. Penny frowns and thinks. Ironwood and her creator wouldn’t like it. They would not allow it. To leave would be to defy their orders, even if the orders had not been vocalized. They had been implied.

She agrees. There are still simmering embers in her chest directed at Ironwood and an all-encompassing need to do good and somewhere in there is an odd feeling of guilt that she hadn’t been enough before and she needed to be enough now. 

She can’t deny that Ruby is a big part of her decision either. They all still look at her like they don’t quite know how to talk to her, what to do, but they’re trying. Ruby’s trying. And Penny’s heart both aches and flutters whenever Ruby looks at her or smiles or hugs her.

It seems a much better choice to save the world with friends than with people who refused to return her identity.

\---

They fill her in on everything when they leave Atlas. They tell her about Salem and Cinder and what they have been doing since the fall of Beacon. They tell her that Ozpin doesn’t believe Salem can be defeated and Penny wonders if Ironwood knew of Ozpin’s beliefs. She wonders if Ironwood also thought, somewhere deep down, that they would lose or if he truly believed she could save the world.

It doesn’t matter. Ozpin is wrong and she says as much. They can save the world. And when Ruby smiles at her Penny smiles back, a real smile not one of the fake ones she would give to Ironwood and the soldiers and her creator because she knew how to mimic expressions even if she didn’t truly feel the corresponding emotion. She feels this one.

It is easier among them. They relax around her, eventually, and she starts to feel more like a real person. She smiles, she laughs, and her emotions still feel muted but less than before. She asks Ruby if she’s still a real girl and feels her heart lift when Ruby says she is.

She doesn’t think she can ever be the same Penny she was before, but she thinks she can still be _real_ and that’s close enough.


End file.
